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Posts tagged ‘budget’

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative. ~ John Stuart Mill

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From the man who criticises the Labor government of economic spending, comes the metaphor, you need to treat the federal budget like a household budget – but refuses to answer questions about his second mortgage.

She conceded that the family, who took out a $710,000 mortgage against their Sydney home when Mr Abbott’s pay was slashed after the 2007 election, could have done with a second income when their three daughters were young. But she had no regrets about her years as a stay-at-home mum.Source: Family claims are Labor nonsense: Margie Abbott, Samantha Maiden, Sunday Herald Sun June 26, 2011

So even on their pay, which would have put Tony Abbott in the top 1% of Australian income earners, they still failed to manage their household finances.

And this man wants to lecture Wayne Swan – World’s Best Finance Minister – about how to budget?

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Freedom of Choice is a mantra for the Right – freedom to choose private schools, private hospitals, private transport, and that often means paid for by someone else.

Those on the Right claim they are against socialism, but they are very much for socialism, when it comes to someone else paying their bills.

Them Right are just against socialism when it comes to helping the workers, the old, the sick, the disabled, the returned military, the single mothers – apparently, they don’t deserve government assistance.

And now Tony Abbott’s attempt to woo female voters with his Great Big New Nanny Give-Away is an appeal to the upper classes, because the middle-class and working poor will never be able to afford a nanny in the first place, never mind claiming the tax deduction.

Adele Horin writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (Experts warn of problems subsidising nanny care), looked at one real-life example of how nannies help the ordinary working woman. The example she used was a a group executive at Qantas who is also a non-executive director of Woolworthssource here. That just about sums up who Tony Abbott’s target audience is for this policy. If you are not on a board of directors some place, do not think for one minute that Abbott cares for you or your children.

Chris Bowen, Federal ALP member for McMahon – Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has written his opinion on the Nanny-plan as:

The… argument that Mr Abbott puts forward for taxpayer subsidies of nannies is freedom of choice. Families, he says, should be able to choose to use a nanny as a right. We hear similar arguments used by the Liberals to justify their opposition to means testing the private health insurance rebate. But this is a muddled argument. Freedom of choice does not equate to a right to a government subsidy. Having the right to get a nanny is not the same as having the right to have taxpayers pay half the bill. I can’t recall John Stuart Mill arguing that freedom of choice leads to a right to a subsidy paid for by others.

It is easy to see that when Abbott talks about Freedom of choice, he means his choice to lavish the wealth of this country, generated by workers and other taxpayers, upon the upper-classes, if we give him unfettered freedom of being Prime Minister.

Yet, this benefit to low-income, working Australians and retirees does not get as much media attention, as billionaires who own media empires and hold press conferences.

Shorten goes on to talk about key Liberals walking away from any changes that benefit low paid Australians.

Shadow Finance Minister Andrew Robb slammed the Liberal’s own policy on Sydney radio yesterday, calling their commitment to keep the Labor Government’s historic boost to superannuation a move which will ‘knock the stuffing’ out of employers.

The $70Billion budget blackhole of the Liberal Nationals budget will give large tax cuts to billionaires funded by slashing anything that will benefit working Australians, low-income Australians, and self-funded retirees.

Although Gillard’s desire for a budget surplus in under threat from a wounded tax base…

Gillard’s problems pale in comparison to Tony Abbott’s, with his oddly ideological and populist commitment to rescind both Labor’s carbon tax and its mining tax without rescinding all the tax cuts and spending increases the taxes will pay for.

There seems little doubt Abbott’s term in office would either be marked by an orgy of broken promises or be consumed by agonising over what spending to cut, with eternal lobbying both before and after the fact.